 Health & Nutrition
Thoughts on
Aging
Family Reunions
(3 minutes: 35 seconds)
 MP3 (audio
only)
Audio/Video Script:
Dr. LaVona Traywick
Assistant Professor - Gerontology
[Announcer] Welcome to Thoughts on Aging with Dr. LaVona Traywick,
Assistant Professor of Gerontology with the University of Arkansas Division of
Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service.
[Dr. LaVona Traywick] Family reunions are often organized to help family
member keep in touch, for
children to learn more about their family heritage, to get people together
before a family member dies, to celebrate a special event or anniversary, or
just to see each other.
Unlike a wedding or funeral, family reunions celebrate everyone—the whole
family! Reunions are intended to provide a feeling of belonging as they can be
great adventures, occasions to appreciate family history, and opportunities to
mend fences and build bridges. Anytime is a great time for families to get
together. If your family has never had a family reunion, Kimberly Powell has 10
great
tips to get you started:
1. Consider identifying each of the different branches of family at
your reunion by color-coded shirts or name tags.
2. Encourage all the generations to bring labeled and dated pictures,
both old and new, of significant people and places. Then have someone scan
and create a CD of all the photos for families to have a copy. If you
did this in advance you could show a slide show at your reunion.
3. Encourage intergenerational activity such as with a family scavenger hunt.
Or you could create your own "what-if" game or a question game such as
"which
great-grandfather was a captain in the Civil War? or "what town was Papa Tom
born?" You can set limits and pick a judge and have a great time.
4. Create a large family tree for the wall. I can be a chart where there
are blanks and you can see if people can fill in the blanks.
5. Create a family cookbook. If there is a story to the recipe, ask that
it be written down too.
6. Video or audio tape the interesting and funny stories that people
are willing to share about your family.
7. If the reunion is held in a place near your family, arrange for a town tour
or other activities.
8. Use stories from your own family history, have families or
groups develop and perform skits that retell the tales.
9. Honor a special family guest. Video record family members sharing
special memories of this person; and
10. Have each family create a display table that incorporates
favorite family memorabilia.
Now these are just some suggestions in which families can have fun sharing family
stories and histories at a family reunion. Just remember, the best time to start the tradition of
family reunion is now.
[Announcer] Thank you for listening to Thoughts on Aging with Dr. LaVona
Traywick. To learn more about this and other topics, contact your local county
Cooperative
Extension Service office.
Resources:
Edith Wagnor, Reunions Magazine, 2007
Kimberly Powell, About.com, 2009 (the list of activities was slightly
modified from:
genealogy.about.com/od/family_reunions/a/activities/htm
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